Citation

Razack SH. Law Cult. Humanit. 2013; 9(2): 352-374.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1743872111407022

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article is part of a larger study of inquests into the deaths of Aboriginal people in custody. I suggest that the Aboriginal body is considered to be one that is already dead, and thus a body on whom a full measure of care would be wasted. The inquest becomes a place where this ''truth'' is established. I explore how the deaths of Aboriginal people in police custody have been persistently "medicalized" - that is, attributed to the medical condition of alcoholism, with the inevitable consequence that they cannot be connected to the violence of an ongoing colonialism. Aboriginal death becomes a timely rather than untimely death, the only thing we can expect from a disappearing race.

Language: en